Blank for a conical container



Dec. 27, 1960 w. RSAIDEL BLANK FOR A CONICAL CONTAINER IN VEN TOR.

Filed May 3, 1955 BLANK FoR A CoNr'CAL CONTAINER William R. Saidel, Chicago, lll., assignor, by direct and mesue assignments, of one-fourth to Thomas N. Cummings, Chicago, one-fourth to Benjamin R. Peterson, Jr., Wheaton, one-fourth to Thomas B. Shin, Chicago, and one-fourth to Nicholas A. Cummings, Chicago, lll.

Filed lviay 3, 1955, Ser. No. 505,603

1 Claim. (Cl. 229-15) This invention relates to a paper blank which applicant developed to implement and improve the product, the blank and method of forming a conical container shown in copending application Serial No. 470,926,1"1led November 24, 1954, by Thomas N. Cummings, Benjamin R. Peterson, Jr., and Thomas B. Shiu. Y

Applicant has two objects. Firstly, he wishes to provide a blank suitable for holding ice cream and made from comparatively inexpensive stock. The feature that attains this object is the positioning of a heat-sealable coating only at places where it will be used and upon just one side of the blank. Ordinary paper cup stock today sells for 9% a pound and up. Machine glaze ordinary cup stock which will not absorb and will otherwise resist organic material such as ice cream presently sells for l21/4 a pound and up. Grease-resistant and heat-resealable glassine paper starts at 23e a pound. Anyone who is willing to make the wrappers out of glassine paper or equivalent will not need the feature of this invention which provides heat-sealable compound in limited areas only on the blank.

The second object is to provide a blank which may be hermetically sealed but which may be opened as quickly and effectively for access to the top of the ice cream as the present ice cream cones that have an open-topped conical wrapper extending about two inches above the top ot the ice cream.

This second object requires some explanation. The common commercial ice cream cone today is seated in a deep paper cone in which the seal along the radial edges of the paper cone terminates at the top of the ice cream cone. The cone is closed by any type of folding. The user unfolds the top of the paper cone and then strips it from the ice cream cone around the perimeter of the ice cream cone. This may be aided by a circumferential scoring. This manner of opening a factory-made cone is an ingrained habit with children, and it is undesirable to try to break the habit. Ice cream after removal fro-rn a cooler quickly becomes soft and the paper container is quite tough. Some of the nuts are frequently loose on the surface and any struggling by the child to expose the edible material is unwanted. Parents will select ice cream cones which do not cause experiments and the dropping of ice cream due to difculties in removing the paper wrapper. The specific object of applicants invention is to seal the paper cone along all edges including the top, and yet to provide a tab which on a simple pulling operation will remove the paper near the upper periphery of the ice cream cone.

These and such other objects as may hereinafter appear are attained in the embodiment of the invention shown in the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Figure l is a sectional view taken on line l-l of Fig. 4 which is after the radial edges have been sealed to each other; and

Figure 2 is a sectional view identical with Figure l excepting that it has been taken before the step of seal ing was performed.

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Figure 3 is a plan view of applicants blank;

Figure 4 is a perspective view of applicants conical container with the ice cream cone within;

Figure 5 is a front elevation showing the tab partly removed.

Continuing to refer to thedrawings, and particularly to Figure 3, the numeral iti identifies a paper blank which is made of an ordinary paper cup stock having a machine glaze at least on the upper side. The shape of the sector is important only insofar .as it must be able to form an open-topped, conical vessel. As is well understood, there are various types of cone-forming machines on the market which require blanks that have special tabs or lands in order to be formed into a Vcone onrthe particular machine. On the surface of the machinelglaze is a layer of heat-sealing material over thevshaded portion-s 12, 14 and i6 only. The layer of heat-scalable material is on one side of the paper only. Over the entire surface of the blank is a thin layer of wax which will resist penetration by organic material such as ice cream at room temperatures and lower.

The blank has two scorings 18 and 20 which enclose two tabs, an outer tab 22 and an inner tab 24. When this blank is rolled into a cone, the tab 22 and the portion 16 `overlap on the outside (under side of the blank in Figure 3), the tab 24 and the area within the dot-dash line 26 marked 27.

This is shown in perspective view, Figure 4. The heatsealable area i4 is narrower than the tab 24 and is sealed to the outside of the tab 24, that is, to the under side of the tab 24 as viewed in Figure 3, so that the tab 22, referring to Figure 4, has its edge 28 overlapping the scoring 26 of the tab 24. For the reason that the two tabs are of approximately the same width, the outer edge 3@ of the tab 24 falls inside the scoring 18, see also Figure 4. The bottom of the tab 22 overlaps the bottom of the tab 24. There is no adhesive and hence no seal in the area between the arrows 32, see both Figure 3 and Figure When this cone is filled, the edge 30 overlaps the scoring 18, and if parts of the scoring perforate the paper, the overlapped edge 30 will obstruct leakage of flowable material through any perforations along the scoring thereon. This edge 30 provides this protection on the way down to the area 16. At the area 16, there is neither scoring nor a heat-sealing spacing.

In order to remove the wrapper, a child simply inserts his fingernail raising the tab 22 at the scoring 36. At this point, there is approximately 3A@ of an inch of tab which has not been heat sealed to anything. As he continues to raise the tab, the next thing that occurs is that the inner tab 24 tears along the scoring 38, it being picked by the outer tab 22 to which it is sealed. Thereafter, the outer tab tears along the scoring 1S and the inner tab along the scoring 20 simultaneously until the top of the container is reached. At this point, the tab may be torn clear. Whether torn clear or not, the child is now in a position to do exactly what he has done in the past. Having a tear scoring around the cone along the dotted line 40 of Figure 3, is optional. The blank tends to tear quite easily around this level even though not scored.

The heat-sealable coating is beneath the wax coating. Referring to -Figure 2, the two overlapping tabs 22 and 24 are shown in face-to-face relationship before heat sealing. The machine-glazed paper is indicated by the numerals 42 and 44, the heat-scalable adhesives by the numerals 46 and 4S; and the wax coatings by the numerals S0 and 52. When the heat-sealing elements engage the opposite sides of these two sheets, the wax is squeezed out so that the heat-scalable adhesive 46 is brought into engagement with the layer 44 and adheres thereto. This requires just a moment. The Wax layer is very thin and melts at approximately 180 F. The heat-scalable adhesive melts at approximately 300 F. The wax, therefore, breaks down and flows before the heat-sealable adhesive fuses. While this takes but a fraction of a second, from the standpoint of the materials, there is a substantial passage of time between the expulsion of the Wax and the fusion of the heat-sealing layer.

A competitive blank could be formed of polyethylene which has a very smooth surface. While the polyethylene may be equally able to resist penetration of iee cream, chocolate and the like, as disclosed in still another copending application Serial No. 474,684, led December 13, 1954, now Patent No. 2,925,347, by Thomas N. Cummings, Benjamin R. Peterson, Jr., and Thomas B. Shin, applicants container is first sprayed with liquid chocolate and it is essential that the side walls hold the chocolate while it is in highly flowable form. The wax does far better than the polyethylene in accomplishing this, and

, this is an incidental advantage of applicants blank over a competitive blank.

Having thus described applicants invention, what he claims is:

A paper cup blank comprising a sector of paper adapted to be rolled into a conical cup and subjected to sealing heat, said blank having on one face along its `arcuate border, and also along one fof its radial margins, a lane of heat-scalable adhesive, said face of the blank further having thereon a coating of wax laid over the entire area thereof inclusive lof said lanes of adhesive, said adhesive having a substantially higher sealing temperature than the melting temperature of the wax layer, whereby the latter melts to owable consistency substantially in advance of reaching the sealing temperature of the adhesive when subjected to sealing heat as aforesaid.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,672,884 Gingras lune 12, 1928 2,032,783 Wood Mar. 3, 1936 2,108,418 Thomas Feb. 15, 1938 2,176,216 Fenner Oct. 17, 1939 2,200,111 Bensel May 7, 1940 2,224,129 Amberg Dec. 10, 1940 2,362,595 Torrison Nov. 14, 1944 2,372,735 Palmer Apr. 3, 1945 2,696,943 Stevens Dec. 14, 1954 

